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What to expect in the Witcher 3's first paid DLC

We got to play the new Witcher 3 expansion, Hearts of Stone, for a couple of hours. Find out what there is to see and do in the first paid downloadable content for The Witcher 3.

5:11 / 28 September 2015

Transcript

I've got Mike Mahardy in the house here.
I'm standing in for Danny, he's sick.
He saw this, it's the Witcher expansion Hearts of Stone.
And we're gonna do a little video about it.
And the first thing I notice is that you meet up with Shani again.
Tell me about Shani.
She's a cool character.
She's a scholar from Oxenfurt Academy.
She's really smart.
She's smarter than Geralt, which is funny because Their dialogue is really funny.
That's great.
You get the sense that she's kind of toning back her vocab a little bit.
She's trying not to talk down to him, even though she could if she wanted to and Geralt kind of picks up on that and seems a little put off by that.
But it's kind of funny, because Geralt is usually the boss of every conversation.
Yeah.
But that's not the case here.
Well, it's great that they have a big history in the games as well as the books, so it's cool to see her pop up in this.
There's branching questlines, a little bit, and a lot of them involve her.
You kind of meet up with her, and it's kind of unclear why she's down in the sewers where you go for this witcher contract.
But pretty much every character in this expansion has ulterior motives, and I didn't even finish Figure anything else out, because I played about a fifth of it.
Yeah, that happens in nature.
Yeah.
Just, sharp turns at every corner, and she really kind of unveils more that she knows about as you go on, and then you're kinda wondering what she's really doing.
So it's kind of a cool dynamic, especially considering she's definitely a really smart character and she's definitely smarter than Geralt.
So you get the sense that Maybe not trust her, even though she's an endearing person, and they have a history.
Yeah.
But you know, just like any character in expansion, you're kinda wondering, what is she really doing here, and what am I doing as far as the quest that other people are giving me?
So let's- speaking of the quest in the new expansion, it look like you just go up to the contract board, and it kicks it off.
Are there A bunch of new quests is a one big quest line.
Like, tell me a little bit about the structure of the Hearts of Stone.
Yeah, so it's recommended for around level 30 characters, so it's late game but you don't have to have beaten the game.
You can do it whenever you want.
Actually, I'm not clear if You know, when it will actually unlock.
But you can do it before you beat the game or after, so both kinds of players should be able to get into it.
But you pretty much just go up and accept a Witcher contract like any other beast bounty you might do during the main game.
And you meet this Guy named [UNKNOWN], he's just really stout, really strong guy who's a great sword fighter as you later find out.
If he gives you this quest to go hunt this beast down and you go into the stores where you meet Shawnee, it's where a lot more of the story kind of unfolds.
And then, all of a sudden, a huge story opens up involving political intrigue, this royal bloodline The Von Everick ancestry, the ghosts-
Yeah, there's a lot of ghosts, and there's some really funny scenes involving a certain ghost who may or may not possess you.
But Danny, apparently, did a heist, which I'm kinda disappointed I didn't get to see.
But he would be able to talk more about that.
Yeah, I can't wait to hear that.
Stay tuned, you guys are gonna talk about on the lobby, so tune in back for that on Tuesday.
One thing I saw from what they gave us is, you're fighting with a wizard, it looks like you're fighting lots of mini-bosses.
Like I said, we played two hours, and I think they're saying it's around ten hours of new content in the first arcade expansion.
Nice.
And in that two hours, I fought like three bosses, including the beast, that maid you mentioned.
That's kinda when things start getting a little foggy as far as What certain characters want.
And then I also fought someone else who may or may not be immortal.
And I don't wanna spoil who that is-
Awesome.
Because it becomes this really cool duel, like sword fight.
But past that I don't know.
At that pace it seems like there's gonna be a lot more bosses, because-
Yeah.
We played two hours and we fought
Throughout all?
Yeah.
There's also, looks like a new Like, part of the Axi ability where it was chaining to other people as you killed them.
It would basically jump to the next person and keep them stoned, which looked cool.
Did they tell you about that, or did you guys have any experience [INAUDIBLE] With the signs or the new abilities, do you know anything about that?
No, I had no idea, wich makes me excited to see what else I didn't know about in the expansion.
Cuz they just gave us 40 ability points to just put however we wanted to.
And I think there's a lot of stuff I didn't see, and I'm sure there's a lot of abilities I didn't see either.
Yeah, and that's exciting, cuz not only are you getting
It's lots of content which The Witcher team is demonstrably amazing at producing narrative stuff, which I'm excited for.
You're getting new abilities, which, the combat is pretty good in the game.
So, that's fun and we don't have to wait too long to get our hands on it.
So, it comes out the 13th I think.
Yeah.
October 13th, you'll have the 10 new hours of content.
I'm sure Just being the Witcher and having a big world, you'll probably get more out of it than that.
Especially with the new abilities and everything.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm excited to play it again.
I have the written preview up today and you can check that out for a little more in depth on my experience.
Cool.
And then Danny and I, like you said, will be talking in the lobby and we can hear about his heist which I'm excited to hear about.
That sounds awesome.
It just sounds like Grand Theft Auto in a fantasy setting, which, what more can you ask for?
Yeah?
Whereas I went to the wedding, which is like a sitcom in a fantasy world, which is just as awesome in certain ways.
Which was great.
Never not impressive.
Yeah, seems like.
I'm excited.
Cool.
[SOUND]

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